Changing patterns of clausal complementation in Latin

Abstract

This chapter offers a unified account of two (at first blush independent) instances of syntactic change in Latin. Both developments are related to the system of clausal complementation. First, whereas Classical Latin typically uses infinitival clauses (so-called AcIs) to express embedded declaratives, these structures are later replaced by finite clauses, usually introduced by a complementizer. The opposite happens in the case of causatives, where a non-finite (infinitival) strategy is innovated. I propose that the key aspects of these two changes can be reduced to a single, more general, parametric change affecting Latin clause structure, namely the way in which the clausal EPP-requirement is satisfied, a change which affected possible patterns of subject placement (Danckaert 2017). The main mechanism needed to account for the observed facts is reanalysis of the Primary Linguistic Data by the language acquiring child.

Form Copy and Markovian Gaps in Latin Syntax: The Control Case

“…Given that nouns are unable to assign accusative in Latin, it stands to reason that subjects of such structures have their case assigned without entering into dependency with a matrix element, i.e. in a manner assumed for the English-type ECM structures (most recently analyzed as raising to the matrix clause in a manner reviving the raising to object analysis), but get their case otherwise, possibly internally to the infinitival structure (as argued already in Pillinger (1980); see further Jøhndal (2012), Danckaert (2016), Lasnik (2019); other hypotheses included case assignment by a null complementizer, as in Cecchetto and Oniga (2002), or by a null preposition, as in Melazzo (2005)). Accusative and infinitive structures admit different kinds of infinitives (i.e.…”

Case transmission in Classical Latin control structures: Between syntax and morphology

“…It seems to be established by now that the accusative case assignment (or, in more general terms, Vergnaud-type nominal licensing) in such constructions, discussed in the generative framework since the seminal discussion in Lakoff (1968) (in transformational terms), takes place without an interaction with the matrix verbal complex, thus differing from the ECM type known from English and being possibly due to properties of the C-T complex internal to the accusative and infinitive structure (see e.g. Cecchetto & Oniga (2002), Jøhndal (2012), Danckaert (2016), Lasnik (2019)). The structure labelled β, on the other hand, has a nonovert subject, atheoretically signalled as ∆ in (2).…”